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Competition No 3797

Set by George Cowley, 1 September

Andrew Hussey in the NS opined that "the language of psychoanalysis is overused in daily life". We asked for examples.

Report by Ms de Meaner

A lacklustre sack of entries on the whole, and a slap on the wrist for most of you. The winners can have £15, except for David Silverman, who can have £20 and the Tesco vouchers. It's good to laugh.

- Thanks for a wonderful evening. Would you . . . er . . . like to come in for a coffee?

- Hmm, I see . . .

- Sorry?

- Oh . . . nothing, it's just that you seem to have an overwhelming urge to kill your father and I wondered if you felt guilty about this and therefore have a repressed death wish but are somehow ambivalent so your ego is defensively converting this into a need to drink a lot of coffee in a subconscious attempt to stay alive . . . And yes, and I take it black with one sugar, please . . .

- Black? No milk? You don't think you might be projecting and displacing your overwhelming feelings of rage and frustration at the bad breast and splitting . . .

- So . . . erm . . . Do you think you fancy . . .

- Do I fancy what?

- Applying to do psychology at university? It's well easy, isn't it?

David Silverman

- Darling, I have a delusional sensation that we are under-compensating for one another's passion.

- Do you mean that we are collectively unconscious?

- More that we are free-associating, my sweet.

- And our introjection? Perhaps we should take up the paranoid schizoid position . . . mmm . . .

- The psychopathology of everyday blokes - you give me such positive reinforcement! Would it be deterministic to have another drink?

- Is the Martini still operant?

- If not, we could re-enact it.

- By Krafft-Ebing, perhaps! I've been wondering if your inner self was symbolically linked to the modal expressivism . . .

- Modal or nodal?

- Modal. By subjecting ourselves to sensory, instinctual or totemic experience, we can live happily ever after.

- And will you always repress my infantile longings?

- Symbolically. But ours is a trauma in which the phenomenon is the significance, and vice versa.

- You make me feel so . . .

- Sssh. You'll give me a complex.

Bill Greenwell

- Oh, darling! When we're like this I feel my superego giving way . . .

- Does that mean . . . ?

- We mustn't! I think we should sublimate our desires, don't you?

- Desires! I want to . . .

- You know, darling, a love object is essential for a well-balanced psychic economy. Without one, one becomes narcissistically fixated. It's something to hold on to in a sea of free-floating anxiety.

- Just let me hold on to . . .

- Darling! Don't! We're not at the stage where we're ready to go beyond the self-regarding ego to find satisfaction in the external world.

- Satisfaction! I'll show you what satisfaction . . .

- It's hard to be sure of what we want, isn't it? To forsake the certainties of the self for the uncertainties of a libidinous encounter, or . . .

- Want? All I want's a shag, for Christ's sake!

- Darling!

- Sorry. I mean . . . I wish to move from the oral and anal stages to full emotional maturity.

- Well, in that case, you can . . . you know . . .

- Yahoo! . . .

Michael Cregan

- Oh John, you're so good and true and handsome.

- Mmm . . .

- You're my life! You're everything to me, John!

- Mmm . . .

- You're my shining sun! You're my world!

- Mmm . . .

- There's only one thing.

- Ye-es? Take your time. Relax. Free-associate.

- Well, you're just a little self-satisfied.

- When did you first become aware of these feelings?

- Just now, actually. When all you could say was "Mmm" . . .

- Your feelings of anger are completely natural in a healthy woman of your age.

- Oh no, they're more vicious and vile than you can ever know.

- We can work together to deal with these feelings of low self-esteem.

- Oh, I feel fine about myself. It's you I hate. I'm leaving you. Goodbye, John.

Josh Ekroy

No 3800 Set by Brendan O'Byrne

We'd like you to take a well-known quotation or saying ("You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"; "the rule is jam tomorrow . . . but never jam today", or a better one of your choice) and write a short extract to show what led up to its being said/written/thought.

Max 200 words by 3 October. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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